## 10.8. Showing the Actual Filenames for Symbolic Links

Go to http://examples.oreilly.com/upt3 for more information on: sl

The sl program is a perl script (see coverage of Perl in Chapter 41) that traverses the pathnames supplied on the command line, and for each one, it tells you if it had to follow any symbolic links to find the actual filename. Symbolic links to absolute pathnames start over at the left margin. Symbolic links to relative pathnames are aligned vertically with the path element they replace. For example:

>     $ sl /usr/lib/libXw.a

>     /usr/lib/libXw.a:
>     /usr/lib/libXw.a -> /usr/lib/X11/libXw.a
>     /usr/lib/X11 -> /X11/lib
>     /X11 -> /usr/local/X11R4
>     /usr/local/X11R4/lib/libXw.a

>     $ sl /bin/rnews

>     /bin -> /usr/bin
>     /usr/bin/rnews -> /usr/lib/news/rnews
>     /usr/lib/news -> ../local/lib/news
>          local/lib/news/rnews -> inews
>                         inews

--LW and RS

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